One of the most important tasks for improving the infrastructure facility of railways is its optimization. Currently, work is underway to create a new (fifth) generation of turnout products for Russian Railways. A model range of turnouts of resource-saving design is developed for rapid and high-speed traffic, as well as for the lines with dense traffic of heavy trains. The article describes the formulation and algorithms for solving optimization of turnout elements at the design stage. Four types of tasks are classified: optimization of the general sizes of turnout units; optimization of elements which failures are defined by conditions of contact with wheels of a rolling stock; optimization of forms of special elements of the railway turnouts manufactured from special rolling profiles; optimization of elements in a case when constructive changes, reasonable from the approach of mechanics of the deformed solid body, cannot be realized for the technological reasons and features of configuration of units. Recommendations about mathematical apparatus which is reasonable for using for the solution of problems of each type are made. The examples of practical application of the offered techniques which have allowed gaining significant economic effect are given. Techniques and implementing algorithms are constructed on the principles of parametrical optimization. It has the common nature. Similar techniques and algorithms can be used for the solution of a large number of optimization tasks of technical means of railway transport. The considered optimization algorithms are successfully applied at designing railway turnouts of Russian production. Its use allows saving the metal spent for production of special rolling profiles and cast details; it also gives the chance to increase life cycles, strength and durability of elements of railway turnouts.

The article explains the possibility of refusal of application of catenary supports of railway track for grounding and use an artificial grounding conductor for this purpose. The Artificial Grounding Conductor (AGC) consists of two metal strips located in the earth on which surface there are cable lines, metal covers of which are grounded on these strips through 1,2 - 1,5 km, but not closer than 200 m from places of connection of the grounding wires to them. Metal strips on traction substations or at the autotransformer points (AP), and also in the middle between two next AP are connected to a railway track or to the center tap of specially installed track impedance bond between APs. When connecting a cable of group grounding with fittings of catenary support it is possible to refuse AGC grounding to track impedance bond. It is noted that when calculating short-circuit currents between adjacent autotransformers, as well as in determining the input resistance of the electric traction network of 2 × 25 kV with a small inaccuracy it is possible to take into account only these autotransformers and neglecting shunt action of other autotransformers. It is shown that in the place of short-circuit the voltage of the artificial grounding conductor - earth system (railway track - the earth) has a maximum point on each autotransformer section. With distance from the first section from substation the value of this voltage decreases slightly and for the next section differs in 10 - 15 %. In the place of connection of AGC to railway track this voltage decreases approximately up to 30 - 40 %. Efficiency of use of the offered grounding system for sections with the supports disconnected from railway tracks, as well as for grounding of metal barriers of station platforms and metal barriers of railway tracks is established.

Article tackles the solution of the problem of wrongdoing prevention in the train of JSC “FPK”, related to the lack of opportunity to provide immediate information to train crew on traveling passengers previously committed illegal actions. For this purpose the developers of ACS “Express-3” have developed the analytical report system that provides business-processes of accounting and controlling the wrongdoing in long-distance trains and solves the following problems: prepare initial information on the classification of illegal actions and passengers disturbing public order in the trains of JSC “FPK”; form for train crew the information on passengers with previously committing illegal actions in trains of JSC “FPK”; form and provide reference and analytical information on the actions to the branches forming trains. The functional parts of the new software and analytical complex are implemented with the workstation “Disturbers”. The workstation “Disturbers” in the part of “Formation of the classifier of disturbers” allow to input, to correct and to delete the records about illegal actions of passengers in long-distance trains. The qualified staff at the train formation and turnover stations may use workstation in the part of “Enter information about disturbers”. They collect the information sheets from trainmasters and input the information on passenger disturbing public order. Before the departure, trainmasters provide train crew with the information sheets on passengers seating, including passengers proceeded e-registration. Information sheets are completed in the tabular form that breakdown by each car and seat number through the whole train. Nowadays, the information sheets are updated by information about disturbers, generated by using workstation “Disturbers” in the part of “Provision of information about disturbers”. The workstation “Disturbers” main functional feature is the opportunity to obtain analytical information about numbers and kinds of wrongdoings in the trains of JSC “FPK” split by train forming branches for the reporting period, the opportunity of the data comparison with the analogue last year period and also the opportunity to obtain distributor’s detailed information.

Contact wire of electrified railways and current collecting elements of strips of current collectors are working under atmospheric conditions, often causing failure of its interaction. Electrical discharges occur as a result of failure of the direct interaction between the contacts. Erosion of electric contacts occurs as a result of such discharges. Matrix type contacts, recommendations on its composition as well as nature of its damageability were considered. Destructions of carbon materials by arc discharge were investigated. Higher erosion resistance to metal-carbon inserts is shown. Positive role of low-melting phase in composition of frame-type contacts under the influence of an electric arc are confirmed. The erosion damages to the contacts during current collecting of high-density currents were considered. It is concluded that the construction of the contacts of frame type with a carbon matrix comes down to putting into it low-melting phase in the form of copper or its alloys by impregnation technology. Creation of contacts of frame type on a metal basis is carried out by input fusible metal into a framework of more high-melting metal through a charge of a powder composite or by technology of impregnation of already sintered material.

The article discusses the need for timely monitoring of potentially hazardous water objects to prevent emergency situations and improve safety of trains. There are several ways of monitoring, which can be divided into two types: visual (expert personally check potentially dangerous objects and conducts measurements) and remote. If the remote method of investigation involved various technical tools that allow to study the behavior of the object (its geometric characteristics and change over time) without the personal presence of a specialist on it. These tools include the unmanned aerial vehicles: drones, quadcopters, omniopters; pilot aircrafts: light aircraft piloted by a pilot, as well as data obtained by aerial photography and remote sensing of the Earth by satellites. For comparison purposes of the listed methods the following parameters have been chosen: efficiency of data acquisition, possibility of automatic integration into the computer, accuracy of measurements, equipment cost, the detailed assessment of the studied site according to the available data, need of presence of the specialist at measurements, data acquisition in real time, time for data updating. During monitoring of objects two types of measurements are allocated - during the peak periods and in a daily situation, and the assessment of different methods of monitoring for each of them is executed. At the first evaluation stage a characteristic which is the most significant for this period of monitoring is chosen, which will play a role of “reference point”, at the second stage all other characteristics are arranged on decrease of their importance, proceeding from qualitative (“is more significant - is less significant”) paired comparisons, at the third stage the quantitative assessment of the importance is attributed to each characteristic. The most significant characteristic (“reference point”) receives an assessment “1”, and estimates of the importance of other characteristics are defined in unit shares, proceeding from expert comparison of a significance value of this characteristic with the most significant. After that the total size of an assessment for each method is defined. This approach led to the conclusion of the feasibility of the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles in the monitoring of water objects which are in close proximity to the railway track. In the short prospect it is possible to offer a combination of use of unmanned aerial vehicles with periodic visual monitoring.

In article the multicriteria method of an assessment of selection quality of personnel on safety management for work at the enterprises of JSC RZD is offered which based on the principle of selection by a complex of individual criteria. One of such approaches is based on use of a method of the main component (MC). The method of group of companies assumes transition from a large number of initial characteristics of object to a small number of the formal generalized variables - main components. At the same time the first two or three groups of companies can explain 60 - 90 % of the specified general variability. In the work for personnel appraisal in the field of occupational safety and health five tests chosen by JSC “VNIIZhT” to assess compliance of employees with the goals set by guidance for development of means and technical solutions to ensure occupational safety at JSC “Russian Railways” companies. To obtain the results a trial assessment was conducted among employees of “Occupational Safety” division to identify the most important test on the following criteria: motivation, technical intelligence, security prevention instructions and general knowledge of labor protection. The main indicator for the selected candidates is the average value of the method proposed in the article using the method of main components. The calculations are performed with the assistance of “Stadia” program. Analysis of the correlation matrix revealed that in the original sample of individuals the value of their individual indicators are correlated, so the use of MC method for building generalized index of their evaluation (instead of usual amount of individual indicators) is justified.

On the basis of studying of the existing practice of market researches three main approaches are identified for creation of comparison process of influence of different parameters of transport services for satisfaction of the population in order to define the priority directions of implementation of administrative decisions in the field of growth of service quality: direct receiving priorities from passengers; calculation on the basis of using mechanisms of the correlation and regression analysis by method of the smallest squares; calculation which is based on application of different types of nonparametric methods of statistics. An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of existing methodological approaches to comparative assessment of the quality of the growth paths of service and services was presented that resulted in the necessity of further development of mechanisms based on the use of nonparametric methodological tools, focused on the construction of convenient predictive models. Methodical and practical approaches to identifying promising areas to improve the quality of public services were proposed and based on the modeling, comparison and visualization of the results of assessment of the impact of different transport service parameters on the overall quality of service by methods of ordinal logistic regression. The approbation and assessment of the effectiveness of the proposed methodological approaches was performed on an array of marketing data about the demand of railway passengers for cases when the use of regression analysis of least squares method was ineffective. As a result, it is proposed to use an integrated mechanism of studying the effect of different service options at the level of passenger satisfaction, which includes a set of parametric and nonparametric statistical methods, and aimed at obtaining the maximum of objective information necessary for management decision-making in the field of quality growth of transport service.

The article set the task of improving the ultrasonic inspection of wheelset axles of railway rolling stock by increasing the reliability of the inspection results. Taken into account the specificity of the wheelset axles production defects, which may occur in it due to failures in technological processes of production, located mainly near the center of the axis and extend along the axis. Such defects are gained more complete identification as a result of the ultrasonic inspection with pulse-echo method on cylindrical side with direct converter in radial direction. During ultrasonic inspection of axles on the cylindrical side in the radial direction sensitivity setting and evaluation of the permissibility of defects is performed on standardized samples of the enterprise with standard reflectors located at different depths in the inspection range. Cylindrical flat bottom 5 mm diameter reflectors are used as reference reflector, to adjust the estimated level of sensitivity, and 3 mm for adjusting the reference sensitivity level. The main disadvantage of the use of standard samples of the enterprise is the possible non-conformity of standard reflectors with technical requirements, such as the lack of parallelism of tangent plane of the flat bottom of the reflector to the entry point of the ultrasonic wave; lack of flatness of the bottom of the reference reflector; increased roughness of the flat bottom of the reference reflector, and others. The mismatch data results in decrease of the amplitude of echoes from the reference reflector, which leads to inaccurate assessment of defects in the inspected axis. To eliminate the disadvantages of standard enterprise samples more reasonable is to make a transition to the assessment of defects by the use of charts amplitude-distance-diameter, built on the use of analytical dependencies describing the amplitude of the ultrasonic echo signal from different reflective surfaces. However, the application of the graphs method amplitude-distance-diameter leads to an increased amount of noises during the process of ultrasonic inspection at the beginning of the inspected range of flaw-detection. The paper presents a mathematical apparatus and on its basis a standardless method for the setting of time function is developed to adjust the sensitivity of the ultrasonic flaw detector during the inspection of wheelset axes of railway rolling stock, allowing to exclude disadvantages of application of standard samples of the enterprise during the control and the diagram method the amplitude-distance-diameter, and accordingly, increase the reliability of the results of ultrasonic testing. To automate the calculation when setting up the time function to adjust the sensitivity of the ultrasonic flaw detector the software “NDTRT-18” was designed (Unit 5). A method for time setting to adjust the sensitivity of the ultrasonic flaw detector with developed standardless method and software product “NDTRT-18” was described. Results of the practical setting the time function to adjust the sensitivity of the ultrasonic flaw detector UD 2 - 70 with using developed standardless method for ultrasonic isnspection of the locomotive wheel seat axis of 235 mm diameter were presented. Developed standardless method and software were implemented in the public joint stock company “Luganskteplovoz” into the process of inspection of wheelset axles of diesel locomotives 2TE116U, 3TE116U, 2TE116UD with ultrasonic pulse-echo method.

To present day the speed of sliding car in the theory of calculation of marshaling hump determined by the formula of free falling body, where the acceleration of free falling bodies are given with the inertia of the wheelsets, which is unacceptable. Therefore, for the first time the movement of the car on the part of the second hump brake position of marshaling hump under the influence of the small crosswinds was studied. Force relations that take place in the system “car-railway track” on the second hump brake position under the influence of the cross-wind of the small value was given. These force relations include “shifting” (i.e. the projection of the gravity of the car with load and cross-wind on the direction of movement of the car) and “restraining” forces. By the difference between “shifting” and “restraining” forces and weight of the car without inertia of the rotating parts (wheel pairs) and with using the basic law of dynamics of a body with non-ideal constraints (D’Alembert’ principle), acceleration of the car when driving in the second hump brake position under the influence of the cross-wind was calculated. Then, the braking time and the sliding speed of the car related to rail lines and braking tires of car retarders is determined by the classical formula for the track and speed of uniformly decelerated motion. On this basis, for the first time results of researching of car movement with acceleration in the second hump braking position is given. Graphic dependences of speed and the way of the car braking from the time of movement were built. By combining built graphic dependences rational time values of sliding speed and the braking way of the car were found. Presented results of researches can be used in the calculation of the motion time and speed of sliding of the car on the next parts of the hump, and in the future to complete development of the corrected program of calculation of the lowering part of a hump from its top to the estimated point.